


Exit Music (For a Film)

by Calliatra



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Angst, Bad Parenting, Character Study, Five Times, Found Family, Friendship, Gaslighting, Gen, Introspection, Pre-Series, RarelyWritten Exchange, Season/Series 01, Sexism, Some Humor, Unwelcome Sexual Advances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3819202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliatra/pseuds/Calliatra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You know Britta's defining weakness: She cuts and runs.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exit Music (For a Film)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fleurting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurting/gifts).



> Many thanks to incendio-nox, my betareader, Africa consultant, and person of infinite patience.
> 
> This is gen, but only inasmuch as Jeff and Britta's relationship was gen in Season 1. Which is to say, the context would encourage you to read it as heavily pre-het, and I have no objections to that at all.

_1998, Denver, CO_  
**Subterranean Homesick Alien**

Her mother’s lobster-bacon mashed potatoes are delicious, and she hates herself for thinking that. But it’s an old hatred, and most of the time she’s angry enough about everything else to drown it out. Or high enough that she doesn’t care. Today, she’s a bit of both.

“Dan called this morning,” her mother says, over a sip of perfectly-aged Chardonnay. “He got an A on his research paper on neurodevelopmental disorders.”

Of course he did. He wouldn’t be Dan if he didn’t.

Her mother looks at her pointedly, and Britta stares back with what she hopes is clear and resolute defiance.

“That’s our boy!” her father says, and she doesn’t gag or roll her eyes, but it’s a near thing.

“Have you thought of a direction you might like to take in college, sweetheart?” her mother asks, as if it’s a thought that’s just occurred to her, and not a question she repeats three times a day.

“I don’t want to go to college. You _know_ I don’t want to go to college. I want to be out in the real world, making a difference!” They won’t get it, no matter how often she repeats herself, but there’s nothing else she can do.

“Oh, honey, I wish you’d get past this phase,” her mother sighs, delicately longsuffering. “It didn’t last nearly as long with your brother.”

Jerry, of course, not Dan, because of course Perfect Dan would never have even considered not going to college. Jerry, whose grades are never mentioned at the dinner table.

“It’s not a phase, Mom, it’s a _decision_! I’m _not_ going to go to college.”

“Of course you are,” says her father.

“No, I’m not! I’m going to work in an animal shelter and I’m going to dig wells in Africa and I’m gong to feed the homeless!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Britta,” says her mother.

“I’m not! I know what I want to do and I’m going to do it! And you’re not going to change my mind!”

Her mother shakes her head. “Oh, sweetie, you don’t know your own mind. Remember when you wanted to be a vegetarian? You were so sure about it, you called it a ‘moral imperative’, but then you gave it up after six weeks. Trust me, your father and I know what’s best for you.”

I was thirteen, she doesn’t say, and you told me I’d get scurvy if I stopped eating meat. When I tried anyway, you started adding meat to everything you cooked. You stopped buying cereal, and even bread, and every time I bought food with my allowance, you threw it away while I was in school. She wants to say it, but she doesn’t want to cry.

Two weeks later, on a sunny Wednesday morning, she storms out of the house swearing she won’t ever come back, not caring if– no, hoping _that_ the neighbors hear her. She sneaks back a few hours later, but only long enough to pack a bag. Then she heads out in to the real world, via the Greyhound station.

 

* * *

 

 _(“The bible says we can eat meat,” Shirley says. “And God created animals so we’d have food. Delicious_ _food. That’s God giving us permission. Are you saying you’re more_ _merciful than God?”_

_But among the mounds of food she brings to their impromptu study room Thanksgiving feast are a vegetarian lasagna and plenty of vegetable side dishes.)_

_  
_

* * *

 

 _1999, Columbus, OH_  
**Lucky**

She met Kade on the Greyhound from Denver to New York. He likes to say he took one look at her and knew she was a modern-day Joan of Arc. She didn’t feel much like Joan of Arc then, just scared and lonely and angry enough that she had to keep moving, because going back wasn’t an option.

It would almost be like a miracle, if she believed in miracles; she had 63 dollars and no idea where she was going beyond vague visions of RENT, and now she has friends, a mattress on the floor of a crowded, but cozy apartment, and a real sense of purpose. But then, this is how things are supposed to be. People – activists – looking out for each other, respecting each other, working together, all equal, a living example of what humanity can be.

Ina doesn’t like her. Neither does Jeanette. Britta doesn’t know why, but she respects their right to personal opinions and doesn’t try to force anything. Kade likes her, and the others at least don’t seem to have a problem with her. And anyway, they’re united by a cause that’s so much more important than any of that. They have to wake up the sheeple to the truth about the world and the government.

Mostly they tag billboards. It’s a disruption of capitalist oppression, a message by the people for the people in place of the regular corporate mind control, and it’s thrilling to think how many people will be startled out of their soma-trance and think, really _think_ for the first time. It’s also thrilling, she has to admit, to be sneaking around at night, always on the watch for security or the police, always on edge, until they’ve gotten safely away. And then that’s such an incredible feeling, all rushing joy, overwhelming and giddy and out of breath and Kade is hugging her and she never wants it to stop.

“This is so amazing,” she says to Ina. “I’ve never felt like this before. We’re actually really making a difference. Doing something.”

“Yeah, because you do so much,” Ina says, bitterly.

It’s like a slap out of nowhere. “What?”

“You can’t seriously be kidding yourself that much, baby,” Jeanette says. “Do you really think you’re actually _useful_?”  
Britta can tell that _yes_ is the wrong answer.

“What do you do? You keep lookout, you hold our cans, sometimes you tag a board. Big deal. You don’t have a job, or any money, or anything at all to contribute except your _barely-legal_ shtick.”

Britta wants to protest. She keeps them safe from the police, she helps with the cooking and cleaning and everything that need to be done, she covers Kade’s shift at the bar when he can’t make it, and anyway, isn’t this what an anarchist community is supposed to be about? Supporting each other while everyone finds their feet, all of them contributing what they can and focusing on their mission? She has a lot to learn, yes, but she’s new and she also has a lot to offer, Kade said…

“Kade—”

“ _Kade_ only picked you up because he has the hots for you. You and your little baby-innocent act, it’s disgusting to watch.”

“That’s not true! Kade sees something in me!”

Ina snorts.

“Three guesses what that is,” says Jeanette.

It’s not true, it’s absolutely not true, and she believes that right up until Kade slides his hand into her shirt and then curses at her when she pushes him away.

Two days later she’s back on the Greyhound with a fistful of cash that’s slightly more stolen than last time, and a set to her jaw that keeps anyone from talking to her.

 

* * *

  

_(“Hey, um, Britta?” Annie says, nervous but smiling, “I was thinking of going to the mall this weekend, and I was wondering if maybe you’d like to come?”_

_Malls are shrines to imperialist capitalism where the brainwashed masses sacrifice their independence for the illusion of material happiness, but Annie looks so genuinely hopeful. Like she genuinely still likes her, even after the mess with Vaughn._

_Britta puts her foot down at getting her nails done, but they do discover that the frozen yogurt place is fantastic.)_

 

* * *

  

 _1999, New York, NY_  
**Fitter Happier**

New York is nothing like it’s supposed to be. She knew it as flashes of news footage, usually dark and always scary, of guns and drugs and prostitutes and gangsters. It’s dangerous, said everyone, which translates to mean it’s _real_ , real people living real lives, unfiltered by what rich white puritans think a city should look like. It means the marginalized clinging together in self-made communities, misunderstood and villainized by everyone else, helping themselves and each other the best they can. It’s a chance to _be_ and to _do_.

Except it’s not. The streets are clean, the crime rates down, the unpretty banished from public places to the chorus of _all hail the Mayor_ , and if there’s a community that welcomes runaway busgirls with fake IDs, she doesn’t find it. She does find an animal shelter that takes volunteers, and so at least she’s doing her part for some living beings.

The summer is blisteringly hot. The sun beats down from the sky and then up from the pavement, and the smell of garbage is everywhere. Her sandals stick to the sidewalk and she doesn’t know if it’s chewing gum or melting asphalt. She works nights and doesn’t sleep during the day, her small fan whirring uselessly against the miserable heat. Then she’s at the shelter, where sometimes she drifts off but mostly she does her part, and then it’s back to the bar.

The first time a customer grabs her she yells, the second time she shoves him off, by the third week she’s too tired to care. Soon enough, she’s gotten used to all their types, the pinchers, the grabbers, the whistlers, the catcallers, and the ones who pretend for a while to be nice, and she regrets nothing so much as the way she once almost felt flattered.

The card probably arrives, perfectly scheduled, right on her birthday, but she doesn’t check the mailbox every day.

 _Darling Britta,_ it reads, in her mother’s impeccable handwriting,

_We wish you a very happy nineteenth birthday, and hope you are enjoying New York._

_It must be so wonderful to be doing what you always wanted to. Animals might not be most people’s first priority, given how much human suffering there still is in the world, but I’m sure your work makes a difference in his own way. We’re so pleased that you’ve found your place in the world._

She tears it up and throws the pieces in the trash, then digs them out again and sets them on fire.

She was already planning on moving, anyway.

 

* * *

  

_(“Yeah, it’s lame that you have more than one cat,” Troy says, “but also, it’s not? ‘Cause they’re like, cute little animals. That purr. And they were probably really sad and lonely and stuff, because their families abandoned them. But then you took them, and now you’re their family. That’s pretty cool, actually.”_

_Britta hugs him.)  
_

 

* * *

  

 _2000, Kitui, Kenya_  
**The Tourist**

No one can say she’s not making a difference now. She’s helping to build a school – a school for the Deaf, no less – in Kenya, something _real_ , something _tangible_. Decades from now, children are still going to be learning things here, benefiting, and carrying that change into the rest of the country, the rest of the world. She’s making a difference, and what’s more, she’s suffering for it. The heat is oppressive and the air painfully dry, the food is bland, her bed uncomfortable, and every day she discovers another thing she doesn’t know how to do here.

She works in an office, an old building near the school-in-progress, and most of the time, she doesn’t understand what she’s working on. People – someone new every day, she thinks, or at least definitely not always the same person – bring in carefully handwritten tables full of decimal numbers, and she types them into one of the two computers while Ariana, her boss, works on the other one. On the other side of the room, Guban and Misrak are always frowning over the contents of large folders, or tearing at their hair while working with a calculator. On bad days, both at the same time. They’re trying to make the financing work. It’s not easy.

All three of them speak English very well, but they don’t do it very often. Britta learned a bit of Swahili in preparation for Kenya, but then she ended up in Kitui. Ariana, Misrak, and Guban chat in Kikamba most of the day, and only switch to English when they need to tell her something. She’s not complaining – it’s only right for them to speak their own language in their own hometown, and only someone with a grossly colonialist mindset even consider asking them to switch to English – but it is a little bit lonely sometimes.

She wishes she were back home, and she wishes she didn’t wish that. She shouldn’t. She’s making a difference, doing what she’s supposed to do. But it’s hard to feel like she is, hard to feel like this couldn’t be done, and done better, by literally anyone else. Maybe someone who actually finished high school and might understand the finances, instead of just typing them up. Hard to think anything she does matters.

And there is so much suffering. Not immediately near her, not in the walled-in, dusty little office, but certainly in the town, and the country, and, of course, the rest of the world. She watches it every night on the small screen of the mostly-reliable television set, makes a point of knowing what’s happening, and discusses how terrible it all is with the other Peace Corps volunteers when she sees them. So much suffering, and she’s doing nothing. So much suffering, and she doesn’t care.  

That’s the awful truth that lodges in her throat like a stone. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t feel anything. She donates whatever money she has, and works as much as she can, and she _knows_ everything everywhere is terrible, but she doesn’t feel anything. There are floods and droughts and earthquakes and hurricanes and that’s in addition to all the political and social and economic injustices people everywhere are suffering from all the time, and it doesn’t touch her the way it should, the way it touches the others. She turns off the TV and wishes her bed were softer.

She’s a phoney. She’s a phoney, and sooner or later all these people here, these people who really, genuinely care, are going to realize that and kick her out.

When the school is finished, she doesn’t move on to the Tana River irrigation project. She slips away quietly, and doesn’t leave a forwarding address.

 

* * *

 

_(“You’re not a phoney,” says Abed. “No one can care about everything all the time. If you did, your head would explode. Or you’d spend all day crying in the shower. It sort of depends on your genre. But your problem isn’t that you don’t care, it’s that you think of it in black and white. Either you care, and you’re a good person, or you don’t, and you’re a bad one. But that’s not how it works. You’re not a good person or a bad person, you’re just a normal one. We all are. It’s what you do with that that matters.”)_

 

* * *

 

 _2009, Greendale_  
**Airbag**

“So,” says Jeff.

“So,” says Britta.

The big unveiling ceremony is over, the Luis Guzmán statue now alone next to a grand piano that apparently no one felt responsible for returning to wherever it’s supposed to be.

They’re still sitting on the bench, not quite looking at each other.

“You staying?”

“Looks like it.”

“Abed thinks you’re going to run,” he says, trying for casual, and coming pretty close.

“No, Abed thinks I’ve run in the past.”

“And did you?”

“Yeah, I guess. When I didn't like the way things were going.”

“You mean when things got tough?”

“That’s not exactly the same.”

“No, it’s less complimentary. But I’ve got to ask. I have a feeling things might get a bit tough here, too.”

“Oh, they already are. Duncan thinks the key to my rehabilitation is to tell him, in detail, about everyone I’ve ever slept with.”

“Well that sounds… exactly like him. Do my a favor and tell him I blew your mind?”

“You wish.”

“Yeah, but not enough to screw this up.”

She shrugs. “Everyone has to screw up sometime, right?”

“You want to know something?” he says. “I’ve never actually seen anything through. Never even tried.”

“Well then here’s your chance. At least that way I won’t be alone.”

“Will _I_ be? You know, if Abed’s right?”

“Abed _is_ right. I did run. A lot. But this is different.”

“Yeah? How come?”

She smiles, not directly at him, but not _not_ at him, either.“I never had a reason to stay before.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The story title and the scene titles are Radiohead songs from their 1997 album _OK Computer_. In case you were wondering.


End file.
